According to a recent post at Czech Hockey Report, former Panthers goaltender Tomas Vokoun has dumped rep Michael Deutsch for Octagon’s Allan Walsh.
Vokoun – coming off the final season of a four-year deal which paid $6.3M in salary during the 2010-11 campaign – was widely considered as the best netminder to enter free agency this summer, once the Flyers locked up Ilya Bryzgalov.
Rebuffing several offers to remain in Florida rumored to be in the three-year, $3.5M range prior to July 1st, the Panthers chose to wisely go their own direction, grabbing the best available goaltender in Jose Theodore; meanwhile presumed candidates for Vokoun’s services dried up quickly, foremost among potential suitors being the Colorado Avalanche, who ultimately acquired Washington’s Semyon Varlamov. Within several hours of the opening of free agency, the soon-to-be 35 year-old veteran was without a team, much less a contract with terms anywhere near what Florida had originally offered.
The Capitals eventually came calling, and in a move which continues to stun observers signed “T-Vo” to a one-year, $1.5M deal: a steal of gargantuan proportion for Washington. For Vokoun? Not so much, but he’s got a solid opportunity to win, though – indirectly – hiding behind varied excuses such as porous defenses and ineffective forwards will no longer fly on an annual contender.
In the end, he was promised far more than could possibly be delivered in a very “down” goaltender market, the roots of which stretch back more than a year: Evgeni Nabokov being the poster child.